Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/5111

5111 Child relationship.... love.... humility.... right prayer....

April 23, 1951: Book 57

The relationship you have with the heavenly father also determines your spiritual development, which depends on the supply of grace and strength, thus also on your request for them. A child's trusting relationship with the father also allows the child to ask for gifts of grace and it will always be richly rewarded, whereas a person who has an alien relationship with God does not approach Him for gifts of grace and can hardly mature without them. A child's relationship with its father is a state of love which includes complete trust which a good father will never disappoint. Love for the father, however, excludes all arrogance, the child approaches the father in humility and thereby achieves an unspeakable amount with Him.... The father's love for His children wants to give without ceasing and also distributes gifts where they are not requested. Nevertheless, the gifts of grace are only effective when they are consciously desired, and a conscious desire will always be the result of a right child relationship which ensures the human being every fulfilment, because God is eternal love Himself. The human being can never attain the degree of maturity on his own which is the purpose and aim of his earthly life, because in the beginning he is still opposed to God and, due to the influence of God's adversary, he still lacks the realization of God's love. But as soon as he believes in God at all, in a higher being Which created him, and trustingly hands himself over to this being, God rewards him for his trust and reveals Himself to him as a loving father in order to win the child for eternity. And now it is up to the human being's free will to also ask the recognized father for His support.... Then he will already have entered into the right relationship with Him, for the appeal to Him testifies to his humility and also secures him the fullest measure of grace. And now he can ascend with God's help, for God's love draws him and will never let him fall again....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers